Carl Panzram
Carl Panzram | |
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hanging | |
Details | |
Location(s) | United States: Minnesota; Montana; Kansas; California; Texas; Oregon; Idaho; New York; Washington, D.C.; Rhode Island; Connecticut; Maryland; Philadelphia Portuguese Angola: Luanda Province |
Killed | 5 confirmed 21 confessed 100+ suspected |
Imprisoned at | ≈100 jails Seven prisons
|
Charles "Carl" Panzram (June 28, 1891 – September 5, 1930) was an American serial killer, spree killer, mass murderer, rapist, child molester, arsonist, robber, thief, and burglar. In prison confessions and in his autobiography, Panzram confessed to having murdered twenty-one boys and men, only five of which could be corroborated; he is suspected of having killed more than a hundred boys and men in the United States alone, and several more in Portuguese Angola.
Panzram also confessed to having committed more than a thousand acts of rape against males of all ages. After a lifetime of crime, during which he served many prison terms and escaped from many prisons, Panzram was executed by hanging in 1930 for the murder of a prison employee at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Early life
Carl Panzram was born on June 28, 1891, on a farm near East Grand Forks, Minnesota, the sixth of seven children born to East Prussian immigrants Johann "John" Gottlieb Panzram and Mathilda Elizabeth "Lizzie" Panzram (née Bolduan[1]). Panzram and his six siblings were made to work on the family farm from a young age until truancy laws, which made it illegal for parents not to send their children to school, came into effect.
Panzram's parents were very angry about having their children sent to school during the day and forced them to work in the fields throughout the night instead; Panzram later reported he would get just two hours of sleep before he would have to get up for school. Punishments in the household also ranged from being chained to being starved. Panzram reflected on his early childhood with the sentiment that he was not liked by other children; by the age of five he claimed that he was a liar and thief, and he recalled that he became meaner the older he grew.[2] Panzram's father abandoned the family when he was 7 years old. Eventually, four of his five older brothers left as well; one of them drowned.
Early criminal record
Panzram's run-ins with the law started in 1899, at age 8, when he was charged in juvenile court with being
In January 1906, Panzram was paroled from Red Wing Training School, where he had been detained after stealing money from his mother's pocketbook.[5][6] By his early-teens Panzram exhibited alcoholism and had a lengthy criminal rap sheet, mostly for burglary and robbery offenses. At age 14, a couple of weeks after his parole and two weeks after attempting to kill a Lutheran cleric with a revolver,[fn 1] Panzram ran away from home to live on the streets. He often traveled via train cars, and later recalled having been gang raped by a group of homeless men on one of these occasions.
Crimes
Early crimes
In the summer of 1906, Panzram was arrested for burglary in Butte, Montana, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment at Montana State Reform School in Miles City. He claimed that after a guard punished him, he assaulted and critically injured the man with a wooden board. As punishment, Panzram had to spend some time in solitary confinement. The following year, Panzram and a fellow inmate named James Benson escaped from Montana State Reform School and stole guns in Terry, Montana. In the coming weeks, Panzram and Benson repeatedly broke into stores and razed buildings, especially churches, to the ground with fire. In Fargo, North Dakota, the two men separated.
Later in 1907, after getting drunk in a Helena, Montana saloon, Panzram enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the 6th Infantry at Fort William Henry Harrison. Refusing to take orders from officers and being generally insubordinate, he was convicted of larceny for stealing $80 worth of supplies and served a prison sentence in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth between 1908 and 1910, with U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft officially approving Panzram's sentence. Panzram later claimed that while he had been a "rotten egg" before imprisonment at the military penitentiary, "any shred of goodness left in him was smashed out" during his time at Fort Leavenworth.[7]
After his release and
In his autobiography, Panzram wrote that he was "rage personified" and that he would often rape men whom he had robbed. He was noted for his large stature and great physical strength—due to years of
Escalating violence
Panzram claimed in his autobiography that after escaping from a
In the summer of 1911, Panzram, going by the alias "Jefferson Davis", was arrested in
Panzram admitted years later that once, when hiding in a
On April 27, 1913, Panzram, using his "Jefferson Davis" alias, was admitted to the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge, Montana. He escaped on November 13. Within a week, he was arrested for burglary in Three Forks, giving his name as "Jeff Rhoades". He was incarcerated at Deer Lodge for an additional year. By his own account he committed sodomy while imprisoned. Panzram was released on March 3, 1915, with a new suit of clothing, $5 and a ticket to the next town six miles away. He rode the rails through Washington, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota via the Columbia River. On June 1, he burglarized a house in Astoria, Oregon, where he was soon arrested while attempting to sell some of the stolen items.
Under the name "Jeff Baldwin", Panzram was sentenced to seven years in prison, to be served at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, where he was taken on June 24, 1915. 50-year-old Warden Harry Minto believed in harsh treatment of inmates, including beatings and isolation, among other disciplinary measures. Later, Panzram stated that he swore he "would never do that seven years and I defied the warden and all his officers to make me."[8] Later that year, Panzram helped fellow inmate Otto Hooker escape from the prison. While attempting to evade recapture, Hooker killed Minto. This event marked Panzram's first known involvement in a murder, as an accessory before the fact.[8] In his prison record which noted his two alias "Jefferson Davis" and "Jeff Rhodes", he falsely gave his age as 30, and his place of birth as Alabama. His only truthful statement was when he stated his occupation as "thief".
Panzram was disciplined several times while at Salem, including sixty-one days in solitary confinement, before escaping on September 18, 1917. After two shootouts, in which he attempted to shoot Chief Deputy Sheriff Joseph Frum, he was recaptured and returned to the prison. On May 12, 1918, he escaped again by sawing through the bars of his cell,[11] and caught a freight train heading east. He began going by the name "John O'Leary" and shaved off his mustache to change his appearance. Panzram would never return to the Northwest.[8] Panzram allegedly ended up in New York City, got a Seaman Identification card, and sailed on the steamship James S. Whitney to Panama. There he tried to steal a small boat with the help of a drunken sailor, who killed everyone on board and was arrested. Still free, Panzram travelled to Peru to work in a copper mine. After that, he traveled to Chile, Port Arthur, Texas, London, Edinburgh, Paris, and Hamburg.
Murder spree
In 1920, Panzram committed a robbery in Newport, Rhode Island. On September 16, 1920, he burglarized the Taft Mansion in New Haven, Connecticut, a residence of William Howard Taft, by that time a former President. Panzram specifically targeted the mansion out of animus he had been holding against Taft since his incarceration at Fort Leavenworth. He stole a large amount of jewellery and bonds,[fn 2] as well as Taft's Colt M1911 .45-caliber handgun.[13]
Using Taft's stolen money, Panzram bought a small sailing yacht, the Akista, and embarked on an 8-year-long murder spree which spanned several countries and involved multiple victims. Sailing south to New York City, for three months Panzram lured sailors away from port bars onto the yacht, made them drunk before raping them, and then murdered the men with Taft's stolen pistol, subsequently dumping their bodies near
Panzram caught a ship to Southern Africa and landed in
After his return to the United States, Panzram asserted he raped and killed two small boys,[7] beating one to death with a rock on July 18, 1922, in Salem, Massachusetts,[fn 3][18] and strangling the other later that year near New Haven.[fn 4] After his murder spree in Salem, Panzram worked as a night watchman in Yonkers, New York, north of Manhattan, at Abeeco Mill factory. In Providence, he stole a yawl and sailed to New Haven, seeking victims to rob and rape, and boats to steal. In June 1923, in New Rochelle, New York, he stole a yacht belonging to the police chief of New Rochelle. He picked up a 15-year-old boy named George Walosin and promised him a job on the boat, but instead sodomized him.
On June 27, on the river near Kingston, New York, Panzram claimed he picked a man up but then believing the man was going to attempt to rob him, Panzram used a .38 caliber pistol from the stolen yacht to kill the John Doe victim. Panzram threw the body into the river.[10] On June 28, Panzram and Walosin docked at Poughkeepsie, New York. Panzram stole $1,000 worth of fishing nets. At Newburgh, New York, Walosin, having witnessed the murder the day before, jumped overboard and swam to shore. He reported to the police at Yonkers that he had been sexually assaulted by Panzram. An alert went out for "Captain John O'Leary". On June 29, "John O'Leary" was arrested in Nyack, New York.
On July 9, Panzram tried to escape from jail. He later conned his lawyer by giving him ownership of a stolen boat in return for bail money. Panzram skipped bail, and the boat was confiscated by the government agents. On August 26, "O'Leary" was arrested in
Final capture
On August 30, 1928, Panzram was arrested in Baltimore for a Washington, D.C. burglary – stealing a radio and jewelry from the home of a dentist on August 20. Three men were also arrested as accomplices and most of the jewelry was recovered. Panzram gave his correct name although he lied by claiming his age as 41 and that he was from Nevada.
In light of his extensive criminal record, Panzram was sentenced to 25-years-to-life. Upon arriving at
While on death row, Panzram was befriended by an officer named Henry Philip Lesser, who would give him money to buy cigarettes.[40][41] Panzram was so astonished by this act of kindness that, after Lesser provided him with writing materials, Panzram wrote a detailed summary of his crimes and nihilistic philosophy while awaiting execution. Panzram explicitly denied having any remorse for any of his actions[42] and began his journal with the statement that: "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me."[2][fn 6]
Execution
Panzram was hanged on September 5, 1930. As officers attempted to place the customary black-hood over his head, he spat in the executioner's face.[43] When asked for any last words, he responded: "Yes. Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard; I could kill a dozen men while you're screwing around!"
Legacy
In 1938, American psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote Man Against Himself. He included material about Panzram, referring to him as using the pen name of "John Smith," and identified him as prisoner No. 31614.[citation needed]
Former
In 2005,
Films
The Yugoslav film Strangler vs. Strangler (Davitelj protiv davitelja) (1984), about an ostensible serial killer, opens with a Panzram quote: "I wish you all had one neck and my hands were around it."[45]: 118
Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995) was loosely based on Panzram's journals.[citation needed] It featured James Woods in the role of Panzram and Robert Sean Leonard as Henry Lesser.
The German horror film Schramm begins with a quote of Panzram: "Today I am dirty, but tomorrow I'll be just dirt."[45]: 122
Filmmaker John Borowski released a documentary, Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance (2012).
See also
- Capital punishment by the United States federal government
- List of people executed by the United States federal government
- List of serial killers in the United States
- List of serial killers by number of victims
- List of serial rapists
References
Notes
- ^ Panzram tried to shoot the teacher; the plot miscarried, and he was thrown out of school.
- ^ Panzram claimed the jewelry and bonds were worth $40,000. Taft reported that his wife's jewelry was worth only a few thousand dollars.[12]
- ^ The Massachusetts victim was identified as Henry McMahon.[17]
- Bridgeport Telegram published reports on the decomposed unknown victim remains found on August 10 (p.1) and August 11, 1923 (p.10).[21] Another report of the murdered victim appeared in the Connecticut newspaper The Day.[22] The Connecticut victim was killed by strangulation; because of the condition of the remains the Coroner ordered "John Doe" buried August 11, 1923.[23] The John Doe had brown hair, was estimated to be approximately 20-years-old, measured 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), and weighed around 150 lb (68 kg). He wore a striped brown suit and had a chauffeur's cap under one arm. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation via a belt drawn tightly around the neck.[24] A handkerchief with a wad of cotton inside had also been tied around his mouth. Two wounds on the victim's chest were initially mistaken for gunshots but were later theorized to be injuries caused by the killer's shoes when holding the victim down.[25] Panzram confessed to the murder in 1928, claiming that he had lured the victim into the woods before sexually assaulting and strangling him.[26][2]: 38 Panzram stated that the victim was a 16-year-old Jewish boy who wore thick glasses[26] and was the son or nephew of a New York policeman.[27][28][29][30] A first degree murder warrant was issued for Panzram,[31]but proceedings were interrupted when he murdered a prison guard the following year, for which he was subsequently executed.
- ^ Luszock's surname was also given as Uszacke, Lusszzock,[35] Uszacke, Lusszzock.[36]
- ^ Panzram did, however, express some remorse, though half-nihilistic, on the next page: “I am sorry for only two things. These two things are: I am sorry that I have mistreated some few animals in my lifetime and I am sorry that I am unable to murder the whole damned human race.”
Footnotes
- ^ "Minnesota, County Marriages, 1860-1949: John Panzram and Mathilda Bolduan, 1878". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
- ^ a b c d e Panzram, Carl. Lesser, Henry (ed.). "Panzram Papers" (PDF). Special Collections & University Archives, Carl Panzram Papers, 1928-1980, Box 1, Folder 3: Typescript of Panzram Manuscript: Part I, Section 1, c. 1928-1930: San Diego State University. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 18, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ "Carl Panzram letter". bing.com. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
- ^ Nash, Jay Robert. "Carl Panzram: Serial Killer as Monster". annalsofcrime.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
- ^ "Panzam Will Be Paroled". The Evening Times. Grand Forks, North Dakota: Published online at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov Library of Congress. January 26, 1906. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved March 31, 2018.
- ^ Gado, Mark. "Carl Panzram: Too Evil To Live, Part I". truTV. Archived from the original on December 17, 2008.
- ^ Killer: A Journal of Murder. Macmillan.
- ^ a b c d e f "Carl Panzram". Serial Killer Calendar. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
- ^ El Paso Evening Post, January 2, 1929, p. 9. Officials could not confirm Panzram claim.
- ^ a b "True Crime XL: Carl Panzram". Archived from the original on February 27, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
- ^ The Tacoma times. [volume, May 13, 1918, Image 1 "Oregon's Prize Bad Man Breaks Jail]
- ^ "Tells Police He Killed 2, Robbed Homes". The Republican-Journal. October 6, 1928. p. 1. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
- ^ New Britain herald. [microfilm reel, September 17, 1920, Image 1 "Rob Taft's Home"]
- ^ Possible Confirmation[?] On August 20, 1920, the body of a unknown man was found in New York Bay off Staten Island"Found Man drowned in Bay". Staten Island Advance. August 20, 1920. p. 9. Archived from the original on March 24, 2018.
- ^ "yacht, the Akiska". google.com. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
- ^ "True Crime XL; Carl Panzram". Archived from the original on February 27, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
- The Norwalk Hour. October 27, 1928. p. 1.
- ^ "Women Identify Seamen in Death". The Pittsburgh Press. November 2, 1928. p. 28. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
- The Montreal Gazette. Vol. CLVII, no. 258. October 27, 1928. p. 16. Archivedfrom the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
- The Reading Eagle. November 3, 1928. p. 2. Archivedfrom the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
- ^ "John Doe near New Haven found August 1923". Ancestry.com. August 18, 2016. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ^ "Body of Murdered Man unidentified". The Day. August 10, 1923. p. 12.
- ^ "No Clue to Murderer". New Britain Herald. New Britain, Connecticut: Republished online at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, Library of Congress. August 11, 1923. p. 1. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
- ^ "New Haven Murder Victim Unidentified". Hartford Courant. August 11, 1923. Retrieved January 20, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Murder Mystery Solution Rests on Autopsy Result". The Bridgeport Telegram. August 10, 1923. Retrieved January 16, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Self-Confessed Degenerate Slayer of Boys Held at Washington". The Morning Call. Allentown, Pennsylvania. October 27, 1928. Retrieved July 27, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
- Lewiston Evening Journal. November 3, 1928. Retrieved April 20, 2022 – via news.google.com.
- Lewiston Daily Sun. October 26, 1928. p. 1.
- ^ "Panzram Gives Slaying Account". Lewiston Evening Journal. November 3, 1928. p. 10.
- ^ a b "Panzram Relates Murder Details". The Evening Star. Republished online at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, Library of Congress. October 27, 1928. p. 2. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
- ^ "Jailed on Minor Charge, Confesses to Killing". The Daily Times. Salisburg, Maryland. November 3, 1928. Retrieved July 27, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Eliminate Ex-Convict from Murder Probe". The Evening Star. Washington, DC: republished online at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, Library of Congress. August 30, 1923. p. 23. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
- ^ "Four Taken in Looting at Capital Residence". Evening Star. Washington, DC. September 1, 1928. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
- ^ "Tells Police He Killed two, Robbs Homes". The Republican-Journal. Ogdensburg, New York. October 6, 1928. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "Accountability--The Carl Panzram Story". Crime News Info. September 27, 2007. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018.
- The Norwalk Hour. October 27, 1928. Retrieved April 20, 2022 – via news.google.com.
- ^ "Burglar at Taft's Admits Two Murders". Stevens Point Journal. October 8, 1928.
- ^ Syracuse Journal, October 6, 1928, Syracuse, New York
- ^ "Corrections Employee Robert George Warnke". The Officer Down Memorial Page. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2011.
- ^ Social Security Death Index: Henry Lesser, born November 8, 1902, died October 27, 1983, SSN issued from District of Columbia, last residence and benefit to Los Angeles, California.
- ^ California Death Index: Henry Philip Lesser born November 8, 1902, Massachusetts, died October 27, 1983, Los Angeles County.
- ISBN 1-878923-14-5.
- ISBN 0-553-56023-9.
- ^ a b Carl Panzram papers, 1928–1982 in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- ^ ISBN 1560976284.